Showing posts with label Combat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Combat. Show all posts
Sunday, November 27, 2011
In my beginning is my end
Civilization is in the family, love is in the home, life is in the genes, freedom is in duty. And yet merely to remain at home, to follow your genes, to be obedient to your duty, is merely to dwell, to feel, to reproduce, and to hope. Which of you is satisfied with that? A man finds what he is looking for only after he abandons it. Only he who loses his life will find it, yea, there is not even time to bury your father. In a timeless universe, still, and complete, where nature and end are the same thing, there is no possibility, there is no need of a journey. But bloody Chaos and Old Night have severed phusis from telos. The higher things lie at the end of time, after a sacrifice, after a death. We go to bring back from beyond the grave, from the clutches of Pluto, the beauty that was torn from us, and restore the beauty to the broken form. Yet at the end of journey the beauty turns ghostly, our hands clutch empty air, and we go back to the beginning, an old heart heavy with sadness. But step over the threshold, what do you see? A mother in blue, and a mewling baby. Another hand, stronger than death, has brought back civilization, love, life, freedom, because greater than any of these things, and worthier of desire.
Monday, September 7, 2009
The Heroic and the Mundane
Jailor: You understand my position, sir, there's nothing I can do; I'm a plain, simple man and just want to keep out of trouble.
from Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons.
μὴ δή μοι θάνατόν γε παραύδα , φαίδιμ’ Ὀδυσσεῦ .
βουλοίμην κ’ ἐπάρουρος ἐὼν θητευέμεν ἄλλῳ ,
ἀνδρὶ παρ’ ἀκλήρῳ , ᾧ μὴ βίοτος πολὺς εἴη ,
ἢ πᾶσιν νεκύεσσι καταφθιμένοισιν ἀνάσσειν .
Homer, Odyssey, 11.488-491.
Let me hear no smooth talk
Of death from you, Odysseus, light of councils.
Better, I say, to break sod as a farm hand
for some poor country man, on iron rations,
than lord it over all the exhausted dead.
Homer, Odyssey, trans. Fitzgerald, 11.577-581.
'For little price,' he said, 'do Elven-kings sell their daughters: for gems, and things made by craft. But if this be your will, Thingol, I will perform it. And when we meet again my hand shall hold a Silmaril from the Iron Crown; for you have not looked the last upon Beren son of Barahir....
Then Beren and Lúthien went through the Gate, and down the labyrinthine stairs; and together wrought the greatest deed that has been dared by Elves or Men. For they came to the seat of Morgoth in his nethermost hall that was upheld by horror, lit by fire, and filled with weapons of death and torment.
from J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion.
Of all the themes chosen by the poets, none has endured so long as the tale of the heroic. It is in the earliest epics, earlier even than the Odyssey. It is a greater theme than romance, though romance, ordinarily a lyric condition, occasionally rises to it. Did a man know every language every spoken, and had he read every work ever written, were he to find and record only the smallest part of only the most profound writing upon the heroic, he should have to sit in his high-tech library for months.
There is something in the hero of song and music. It is in the music of his laugh which disdains an enemy. It is in tears as tragedy inevitably strikes, and more than once in the same place. It is in the murmur and thanks of the poor in spirit who look on and suffer. It is in the deep chorus of the sea which carries him from his home, and washes him back upon it. It is in tender words for his lover, O three graces in one, my Beauty, Joy, and Plenty. It is in the glad tidings of victory, and it is in the dull silence of defeat. And this is why the earliest poets chose to sing their stories in song, for they heard this music, which is the trilling echo of divinity, the shadow of Glory.
And yet the poet finishes the song, and the hero must die, after all of his sufferings, and sometimes in the midst of them, and what must be done after it is finished? Even Beren the Befriended died in battle, but was brought back in resurrected body only at the strange mercy of the gods. And the gods were moved by the lamentation of Lúthien daughter of Melian, who miraculously found the thread of song to tell her sorrow in some wayward weft of the eternal fabric lost long ago, so that no woman is ever likely to repeat her deed.
A man may only bear so much divinity before it kills him. Prospero abdicates his power that he might return to Italy with his newly-wedded daughter and son. The mundane has its place, in which the crowds share, and in which the hero must share if he is to live well. For heroism always depends upon extraordinary grace. Homer knew this, and that is why his heroes have the blood of gods in their veins, why gods smith their armour, why gods advise and protect them. But there is an ordinary grace for the ordinary existence - for marriage, for labour with the hands until evening, for quiet and a simple gravestone. If a man is to leave this ordinary existence, he must be called. There is grace appointed for such times. But the man who leaves without a call presumes upon God's extraordinary grace. He commits sacrilege. To avoid this, the hero must study when it is fitting to subdue and to suffer, and when it is fitting to walk away.
Richard Wagner's Ring cycle idolizes the most pernicious form of modern heroism- the heroic romance. Here is Brunnhilde in the early part of the Götterdämmerung, speaking of the ring, now a love-token from Siegfried, to her Valkyrie sister Waltraute:
Ha! know'st thou what 'tis to me?
How canst thou grasp it, loveless maid!
More than Vahalla's rapture,
more than the fame of gods is this my ring:
one glance at its lustrous gold,
one flash of its holy fire
more is to me e'en than all the heaven's aye-enduring delight.
For blissfully there shineth the love of Siegfried.
Love of Siegfried!
O might but its rapture be told thee!
that lives in the ring.
Go hence to the holy council of gods!
And of my ring tell o'er to them my words:
(rather more slowly) from love I never will turn,
of love they never shall rob me,
though into ruins
Valhalla's splendor should fall!
To the credit of Wagner's genius, Brunnhilde indeed sees the ruin of Valhalla. The love she snatched with Siegfried from out of the ordinary life, without marriage, communal covenant, or obedience, can only find consummation in life through consumption in a fiery death. Having forsaken the gods, the lovers must play their own sacrificial lambs in order to atone for their sacrilege.
That death is no death proper for men, and moreover it is quite ridiculous when we jump out of myth and into the present. Practically speaking, whatever the commercials suggest, there is only a small need for heroism. These days, if it is possible at all, to be heroic is to suffer deeply with stubborn charity, and who goes looking for that? Perhaps only Christians and event-coordinators, and anyway it will come to them unhoped for in its due time. But still the best of life is to be had in the mundane, ordinary existence: "Territory, status, and love, sing all the birds, are what matter: ... a place I may go both in and out of."
Of course ordinary men and women must have fun and adventure too: there is a place for theatre and the make-believe epic, and that is one of the chief reasons we love the writings of G.K. Chesterton. But the really demanding sort of heroism in which Chesterton himself lived - the deadly seriousness, the fury, and the compassion that churns the gut - to hold these things in one's soul is a rare calling. Be wary of taking it up, and be ready to lay it down. (These days we have too many wannabe heroes calling themselves pundits. You can tell this by the way they contrive in themselves feelings of shock and horror, for effect. Sadly, many cases practice the art so often, they either deceive themselves into thinking that their horror is real, or they lose their capacity to feel anything else.)
Those who are summoned to heroism must remember that the dark valley of heroism is called the Terrible. It is, to put it lightly, a rather unpleasant place. It also happens to be impossibly difficult to mess and win through it. And the character of impossibility is precisely what allows for a heroic situation, for the stonewall defiance against the impossible is precisely what stamps the rare title of hero upon a man or a woman. But if it is impossible, how is it accomplished, and how is anyone called a hero? Here is the answer. Every hero's success, and every pedestal of fame, must inescapably come as a gift of God, since it is only God's Mercy which has the power, at the last moment, to turn the tables upon doom. Only divine Pity completes the impossible quest. So it must be whenever a man burning with desire attempts the indestructible to destroy or the free to possess.
Then, if all that can be done is in good faith done, whether Pity has broken the spell, or whether the quest has failed, greatness must breathe a sigh of relief: it must diminish, and go into the West (which is the old world for Home).
from Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons.
Homer, Odyssey, 11.488-491.
Let me hear no smooth talk
Of death from you, Odysseus, light of councils.
Better, I say, to break sod as a farm hand
for some poor country man, on iron rations,
than lord it over all the exhausted dead.
Homer, Odyssey, trans. Fitzgerald, 11.577-581.
'For little price,' he said, 'do Elven-kings sell their daughters: for gems, and things made by craft. But if this be your will, Thingol, I will perform it. And when we meet again my hand shall hold a Silmaril from the Iron Crown; for you have not looked the last upon Beren son of Barahir....
Then Beren and Lúthien went through the Gate, and down the labyrinthine stairs; and together wrought the greatest deed that has been dared by Elves or Men. For they came to the seat of Morgoth in his nethermost hall that was upheld by horror, lit by fire, and filled with weapons of death and torment.
from J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion.
Of all the themes chosen by the poets, none has endured so long as the tale of the heroic. It is in the earliest epics, earlier even than the Odyssey. It is a greater theme than romance, though romance, ordinarily a lyric condition, occasionally rises to it. Did a man know every language every spoken, and had he read every work ever written, were he to find and record only the smallest part of only the most profound writing upon the heroic, he should have to sit in his high-tech library for months.
There is something in the hero of song and music. It is in the music of his laugh which disdains an enemy. It is in tears as tragedy inevitably strikes, and more than once in the same place. It is in the murmur and thanks of the poor in spirit who look on and suffer. It is in the deep chorus of the sea which carries him from his home, and washes him back upon it. It is in tender words for his lover, O three graces in one, my Beauty, Joy, and Plenty. It is in the glad tidings of victory, and it is in the dull silence of defeat. And this is why the earliest poets chose to sing their stories in song, for they heard this music, which is the trilling echo of divinity, the shadow of Glory.
And yet the poet finishes the song, and the hero must die, after all of his sufferings, and sometimes in the midst of them, and what must be done after it is finished? Even Beren the Befriended died in battle, but was brought back in resurrected body only at the strange mercy of the gods. And the gods were moved by the lamentation of Lúthien daughter of Melian, who miraculously found the thread of song to tell her sorrow in some wayward weft of the eternal fabric lost long ago, so that no woman is ever likely to repeat her deed.
A man may only bear so much divinity before it kills him. Prospero abdicates his power that he might return to Italy with his newly-wedded daughter and son. The mundane has its place, in which the crowds share, and in which the hero must share if he is to live well. For heroism always depends upon extraordinary grace. Homer knew this, and that is why his heroes have the blood of gods in their veins, why gods smith their armour, why gods advise and protect them. But there is an ordinary grace for the ordinary existence - for marriage, for labour with the hands until evening, for quiet and a simple gravestone. If a man is to leave this ordinary existence, he must be called. There is grace appointed for such times. But the man who leaves without a call presumes upon God's extraordinary grace. He commits sacrilege. To avoid this, the hero must study when it is fitting to subdue and to suffer, and when it is fitting to walk away.
Richard Wagner's Ring cycle idolizes the most pernicious form of modern heroism- the heroic romance. Here is Brunnhilde in the early part of the Götterdämmerung, speaking of the ring, now a love-token from Siegfried, to her Valkyrie sister Waltraute:
Ha! know'st thou what 'tis to me?
How canst thou grasp it, loveless maid!
More than Vahalla's rapture,
more than the fame of gods is this my ring:
one glance at its lustrous gold,
one flash of its holy fire
more is to me e'en than all the heaven's aye-enduring delight.
For blissfully there shineth the love of Siegfried.
Love of Siegfried!
O might but its rapture be told thee!
that lives in the ring.
Go hence to the holy council of gods!
And of my ring tell o'er to them my words:
(rather more slowly) from love I never will turn,
of love they never shall rob me,
though into ruins
Valhalla's splendor should fall!
To the credit of Wagner's genius, Brunnhilde indeed sees the ruin of Valhalla. The love she snatched with Siegfried from out of the ordinary life, without marriage, communal covenant, or obedience, can only find consummation in life through consumption in a fiery death. Having forsaken the gods, the lovers must play their own sacrificial lambs in order to atone for their sacrilege.
That death is no death proper for men, and moreover it is quite ridiculous when we jump out of myth and into the present. Practically speaking, whatever the commercials suggest, there is only a small need for heroism. These days, if it is possible at all, to be heroic is to suffer deeply with stubborn charity, and who goes looking for that? Perhaps only Christians and event-coordinators, and anyway it will come to them unhoped for in its due time. But still the best of life is to be had in the mundane, ordinary existence: "Territory, status, and love, sing all the birds, are what matter: ... a place I may go both in and out of."
Of course ordinary men and women must have fun and adventure too: there is a place for theatre and the make-believe epic, and that is one of the chief reasons we love the writings of G.K. Chesterton. But the really demanding sort of heroism in which Chesterton himself lived - the deadly seriousness, the fury, and the compassion that churns the gut - to hold these things in one's soul is a rare calling. Be wary of taking it up, and be ready to lay it down. (These days we have too many wannabe heroes calling themselves pundits. You can tell this by the way they contrive in themselves feelings of shock and horror, for effect. Sadly, many cases practice the art so often, they either deceive themselves into thinking that their horror is real, or they lose their capacity to feel anything else.)
Those who are summoned to heroism must remember that the dark valley of heroism is called the Terrible. It is, to put it lightly, a rather unpleasant place. It also happens to be impossibly difficult to mess and win through it. And the character of impossibility is precisely what allows for a heroic situation, for the stonewall defiance against the impossible is precisely what stamps the rare title of hero upon a man or a woman. But if it is impossible, how is it accomplished, and how is anyone called a hero? Here is the answer. Every hero's success, and every pedestal of fame, must inescapably come as a gift of God, since it is only God's Mercy which has the power, at the last moment, to turn the tables upon doom. Only divine Pity completes the impossible quest. So it must be whenever a man burning with desire attempts the indestructible to destroy or the free to possess.
Then, if all that can be done is in good faith done, whether Pity has broken the spell, or whether the quest has failed, greatness must breathe a sigh of relief: it must diminish, and go into the West (which is the old world for Home).
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Belloc Wednesday - Chesterton on Belloc
This is the first description of Belloc that Chesterton put to writing, which he wrote for the introduction to Hilaire Belloc: The Man and His Work by C. C. Mandell and E. Shanks, 1916.
From Masie Ward, Gilbert Keith Chesterton (London: Sheed & Ward, 1944), p. 113.
From Masie Ward, Gilbert Keith Chesterton (London: Sheed & Ward, 1944), p. 113.
When I first met Belloc he remarked to the friend who introduced us that he was in low spirits. His low spirits were and are much more uproarious and enlivening than anybody else's high spirits. He talked into the night, and left behind in it a glowing track of good things. When I have said that I mean things that are good, and certainly not merely bons mots, I have said all that can be said in the most serious aspect about the man who has made the greatest fight for good things of all the men of my time.
We met between a little Soho paper shop and a little Soho restaurant; his arms and pockets were stuffed with French Nationalist and French Atheist newspapers. He wore a straw hat shading his eyes, which are like a sailor's, and emphasizing his Napoleonic chin.....
The little restaurant to which we went had already become a haunt for three or four of us who held strong but unfashionable views about the South African War, which was then in its earliest prestige. Most of us were writing on the Speaker....
...What he brought into our dream was this Roman appetite for reality and for reason in action, and when he came into the door there entered with him the smell of danger.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Thought for the Day No. 6: Walls and Ring-roads
This is the seed of a larger essay on the nature of modern cities.
In multitudinous days passed of political uncertainty, distributed political authority, and armies without air-power, cities built great walls to protect their citizens' lives and capital, and to increase the income of the local government. This act of ownership marked them off from the countryside, and so symbolised a distinct mode of life. Today our cities build ring-road highways for much the same purpose and with much the same symbolism. The fortifications of the past are grand, familiar, and local, and the men who walked them watched the land. The fortifications of the present are rarely more than brute, distant, and identical, and the people who drive along them watch only the road ahead.
Boothman Bar, one of four great gatehouses of the city of York
In multitudinous days passed of political uncertainty, distributed political authority, and armies without air-power, cities built great walls to protect their citizens' lives and capital, and to increase the income of the local government. This act of ownership marked them off from the countryside, and so symbolised a distinct mode of life. Today our cities build ring-road highways for much the same purpose and with much the same symbolism. The fortifications of the past are grand, familiar, and local, and the men who walked them watched the land. The fortifications of the present are rarely more than brute, distant, and identical, and the people who drive along them watch only the road ahead.
Boothman Bar, one of four great gatehouses of the city of York
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Kyrgyzstan (yes, one of those)
The US lacks decent supply routes into Afghanistan (it's landlocked, remember); meanwhile, President Obama has already begun to order many more troops moved into the region, which is still suffering heavily from Taliban attacks. One route goes through the Khyber Pass from Pakistan, but in recent months Pakistan has become more tolerant of the Taliban organization which has set up in the northwestern villages, so that route is coming under heavy attack. The only major airbase supply route is in the northern country of Kyrgyzstan, called Manas (after a legendary national hero who united the tribes against the Mongol hordes),
It appears that the Russians offered the Kyrgyzstanis a $2.15 billion package earlier this year to kick the Americans out of Manas airbase. No doubt they will use this as leverage in negotiations against the missile shield in Eastern Europe. At the same time, it seems that Mr. Obama, in a formerly secret letter to President Medvedev, has offered to give up the missile shield in return for Russia abandoning its nuclear financial and technological aid to Iran.
This seems the height of folly. It swaps a temporary setback for Iran (which will continue to press forward in nuclear technology with or without Russia's help) in return for a permanent setback for the US (which will leave Europe undefended from long-term future Iranian attacks, Russian attacks, or anyone else's attacks). In consequence it shows Russia that underhanded power-politics works, that the US is weak and irresolute, and perhaps most importantly of all, it injures the trust that we have earned in Eastern Europe, which depends upon us to keep the Russians in check; when we show our ignorance of Russian diplomatic methods and the absence of backbone, they will begin to transfer their trust to the EU. NATO itself may be threatened (I know that already France and Germany are in major disagreement with the US about policy, for instance over inducting Georgia into the alliance system).
Considering this background, it seems that leaving the airbase just as we are doing is part of the same weakness of will and blinkered foreign policy focusing exclusively on the immediate problems in Iran and Afghanistan.
Now, it may be IN FACT that allowing Russia to exercise dominance of Central Asia is the most prudent policy, because it may satisfy its imperial ambitions in the medium-term, thus keeping pressure off of Eastern Europe. Also, China is interested in expanding its power, and may clash with Russia (both nations apparently have been conducting joint wargames with the Asian countries, including special-forces operations). But this outlet for Russian ambition would be made terribly dangerous if China and Russia were to form an Asian alliance. Someone should figure out the likelihood of this event.
But I think it more prudent, as a rule of course, to show Russia that they cannot exert control over this region, or anyother, most especially with such obvious ploys like the one over Manas, in which absolutely no Russian interest is served except that America is hurt. In fact, Russia is hurt by it also. When a militaristic state can only afford an (openly acknowledged) military budget of $50 billion, $2.15 billion as a diplomatic bribe hurts a lot. If they end up paying it, but their purpose is nevertheless totally defeated, they lose money and face. That ought to be our goal.
This is far and away the best analytic article (and short, too) that I have found on Manas, and asserts the Americans can find cheaper supply routes elsewhere. But we should not only find cheaper supply routes. We should secure so many of them that we show Russia to be impotent in regards to our foreign policy.
Though the article gives the right solution, it glosses over the central problem: Manas is not about supply routes, but about politics with Russia. I think the best analogy is to think of Russia building a blockade in our path. If we can blow up the blockade, great. If we can go around it more cheaply, and come out stronger than ever, better.
It appears that the Russians offered the Kyrgyzstanis a $2.15 billion package earlier this year to kick the Americans out of Manas airbase. No doubt they will use this as leverage in negotiations against the missile shield in Eastern Europe. At the same time, it seems that Mr. Obama, in a formerly secret letter to President Medvedev, has offered to give up the missile shield in return for Russia abandoning its nuclear financial and technological aid to Iran.
This seems the height of folly. It swaps a temporary setback for Iran (which will continue to press forward in nuclear technology with or without Russia's help) in return for a permanent setback for the US (which will leave Europe undefended from long-term future Iranian attacks, Russian attacks, or anyone else's attacks). In consequence it shows Russia that underhanded power-politics works, that the US is weak and irresolute, and perhaps most importantly of all, it injures the trust that we have earned in Eastern Europe, which depends upon us to keep the Russians in check; when we show our ignorance of Russian diplomatic methods and the absence of backbone, they will begin to transfer their trust to the EU. NATO itself may be threatened (I know that already France and Germany are in major disagreement with the US about policy, for instance over inducting Georgia into the alliance system).
Considering this background, it seems that leaving the airbase just as we are doing is part of the same weakness of will and blinkered foreign policy focusing exclusively on the immediate problems in Iran and Afghanistan.
Now, it may be IN FACT that allowing Russia to exercise dominance of Central Asia is the most prudent policy, because it may satisfy its imperial ambitions in the medium-term, thus keeping pressure off of Eastern Europe. Also, China is interested in expanding its power, and may clash with Russia (both nations apparently have been conducting joint wargames with the Asian countries, including special-forces operations). But this outlet for Russian ambition would be made terribly dangerous if China and Russia were to form an Asian alliance. Someone should figure out the likelihood of this event.
But I think it more prudent, as a rule of course, to show Russia that they cannot exert control over this region, or anyother, most especially with such obvious ploys like the one over Manas, in which absolutely no Russian interest is served except that America is hurt. In fact, Russia is hurt by it also. When a militaristic state can only afford an (openly acknowledged) military budget of $50 billion, $2.15 billion as a diplomatic bribe hurts a lot. If they end up paying it, but their purpose is nevertheless totally defeated, they lose money and face. That ought to be our goal.
This is far and away the best analytic article (and short, too) that I have found on Manas, and asserts the Americans can find cheaper supply routes elsewhere. But we should not only find cheaper supply routes. We should secure so many of them that we show Russia to be impotent in regards to our foreign policy.
Though the article gives the right solution, it glosses over the central problem: Manas is not about supply routes, but about politics with Russia. I think the best analogy is to think of Russia building a blockade in our path. If we can blow up the blockade, great. If we can go around it more cheaply, and come out stronger than ever, better.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Everything Seems to Aim at Some Good (Part 1 - Anime)
I've been watching an anime called Full Metal Alchemist. I highly recommend it - you can find the episodes on youtube.
The combat resolves itself in a way that is mostly alien to our Western imagination. (FMA is somewhat westernized, but I'm going to treat the eastern elements.) Our villains are rarely attracted to the good side. In this anime (and in other Japanese anime films that I've seen) the villains may join the good side at any time, but the switch is not caused by a crisis of conscience. Rather, they realize that their best interest lies in allying themselves with the hero.
From the start, the villains have their own ends and ambitions, only vaguely related to either their master's plans or those of the hero. Thus they make far more interesting -human- villains, who can sustain hours of dialogue and development. They generally have some secret which is the cause of their ambition, and if the hero can discover it, he can use it to persuade them to join him, not because they'll believe in the right, but because with him, they can get what they want. The only villains completely invulnerable to his persuasion are (logically) the ones who are dedicated to the ruination of the project he has at hand.
The villains may even tag along and help the hero accomplish his mission, as long they will have a chance to kill him afterwards. It seems that even the 'boss' villain can be persuaded to change, and the storyline can randomly end with the hero and the ultimate evil just agreeing to stop fighting.
It has some similarity to the Platonic idea that knowledge is equivalent to virtue - when you know enough, you choose rightly. But a person can be unprepared for too much knowledge, because knowledge forces you to choose, and a person is not always prepared to make a difficult choice. Thus masters often hide things from their pupils. The sublime greatness of the pupil usually appears when he makes the right choice in the face of unforeseen knowledge.
An ethical comparison of the characters looks something like this:
Chaos
c) Desiring some good, but have forgotten the Way
b) Desiring some good
a) Desiring some good, and with an inkling of the Way
The Way
Characters develop in either direction, perhaps change direction, through the course of the story. The conflict is between combinations of all three types. Sometimes two characters dedicated to the Way end up fighting, both for the right reasons. This way, there is a possibility of a beautiful fight, and beautiful death; and from the possibility of the beautiful death you get the warrior, whose life is dedicated to war, for the sake of the beauty of war. This is the most alien notion of these anime - the locality of the good. Good can come into conflict with other good. (Hilaire Belloc, incidentally, has the Christian solution - ''There may be shrines and shrines on any land, and sanctities of many kinds. For you will notice, Grizzlebeard, or rather you should have noticed already, having lived so long, that good things do not jostle.") Though the Japanese do have some notion of universal peace - I think this may be the promise of the Emperor of Japan.
The combat makes sense given Aristotle's ancient claim, in the Nicomachean Ethics, that all things aim at some good. All these characters do aim at some good - and it's not only some perceived good, but some real good.
Nevertheless, the greatest of the characters choose the best of the real goods, and on a rare occasion, they choose to live in the Way, which is to live according to no individual good, to have silence and absence of volition in the centre of being, and therefore to be able to honor every individual good as it deserves, and never to be swayed by the selfish interest. I've an idea that for the Buddhist, individuality is imperfect. And that's as much Eastern philosophy as I shall attempt.
Shrike - Miyamoto Musashi (17th century Japanese swordsman, painter, and philosopher)
"The Way of the warrior does not include other Ways...but if you know the Way broadly you will see it in everything"
The combat resolves itself in a way that is mostly alien to our Western imagination. (FMA is somewhat westernized, but I'm going to treat the eastern elements.) Our villains are rarely attracted to the good side. In this anime (and in other Japanese anime films that I've seen) the villains may join the good side at any time, but the switch is not caused by a crisis of conscience. Rather, they realize that their best interest lies in allying themselves with the hero.
From the start, the villains have their own ends and ambitions, only vaguely related to either their master's plans or those of the hero. Thus they make far more interesting -human- villains, who can sustain hours of dialogue and development. They generally have some secret which is the cause of their ambition, and if the hero can discover it, he can use it to persuade them to join him, not because they'll believe in the right, but because with him, they can get what they want. The only villains completely invulnerable to his persuasion are (logically) the ones who are dedicated to the ruination of the project he has at hand.
The villains may even tag along and help the hero accomplish his mission, as long they will have a chance to kill him afterwards. It seems that even the 'boss' villain can be persuaded to change, and the storyline can randomly end with the hero and the ultimate evil just agreeing to stop fighting.
It has some similarity to the Platonic idea that knowledge is equivalent to virtue - when you know enough, you choose rightly. But a person can be unprepared for too much knowledge, because knowledge forces you to choose, and a person is not always prepared to make a difficult choice. Thus masters often hide things from their pupils. The sublime greatness of the pupil usually appears when he makes the right choice in the face of unforeseen knowledge.
An ethical comparison of the characters looks something like this:
Chaos
c) Desiring some good, but have forgotten the Way
b) Desiring some good
a) Desiring some good, and with an inkling of the Way
The Way
Characters develop in either direction, perhaps change direction, through the course of the story. The conflict is between combinations of all three types. Sometimes two characters dedicated to the Way end up fighting, both for the right reasons. This way, there is a possibility of a beautiful fight, and beautiful death; and from the possibility of the beautiful death you get the warrior, whose life is dedicated to war, for the sake of the beauty of war. This is the most alien notion of these anime - the locality of the good. Good can come into conflict with other good. (Hilaire Belloc, incidentally, has the Christian solution - ''There may be shrines and shrines on any land, and sanctities of many kinds. For you will notice, Grizzlebeard, or rather you should have noticed already, having lived so long, that good things do not jostle.") Though the Japanese do have some notion of universal peace - I think this may be the promise of the Emperor of Japan.
The combat makes sense given Aristotle's ancient claim, in the Nicomachean Ethics, that all things aim at some good. All these characters do aim at some good - and it's not only some perceived good, but some real good.
Nevertheless, the greatest of the characters choose the best of the real goods, and on a rare occasion, they choose to live in the Way, which is to live according to no individual good, to have silence and absence of volition in the centre of being, and therefore to be able to honor every individual good as it deserves, and never to be swayed by the selfish interest. I've an idea that for the Buddhist, individuality is imperfect. And that's as much Eastern philosophy as I shall attempt.
Shrike - Miyamoto Musashi (17th century Japanese swordsman, painter, and philosopher)"The Way of the warrior does not include other Ways...but if you know the Way broadly you will see it in everything"
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